He took a step closer, his towering frame casting a shadow over me. I caught his scent, cedar and smoke, and something bitter underneath it. Agitation. "Who knows, they might have followed your trail back to the estate. They could track somebody through you. Somebody like Scarlett."
I bit down on my lower lip as the last fragile thread of hope inside me snapped clean. Not for a single moment had he been worried about me. He was afraid they might hurt Scarlett. His precious Omega attendant. I was so foolish.
My inner wolf snarled, low and wounded, pacing restlessly behind my ribs. She wanted to shift, to let the pain bleed out through fur and fang. I held her back.
When I didn't respond, his eyes drifted to the table again. "Where's mine?"
His voice was calm on the surface, but there was a sharpness beneath it that could slice through bone.
I took a deep breath and turned to face him, my expression carefully neutral. "I thought you don't like black coffee."
When those words reached him, he didn't respond. But his jaw tightened, the muscle feathering beneath his skin. Both of us knew the truth. He hated black coffee, yet I had always forced him to drink it every single morning.
I knew the bitterness helped him endure the crushing weight of leading a pack built on aggression and blood-debts. The caffeine steadied his nerves before council gatherings and territorial disputes. This morning, I chose not to care.
I ignored his darkening gaze and downed my cup in one swift gulp. The heat burned a path down my throat, grounding me. Then I placed my plate in the sink and grabbed my satchel from the hook by the door.
"Let me take you to the den."
I didn't wait for his permission as I strode toward the door.
Behind me, I caught his voice offering me a ride to the den. I dismissed it as a trick of my heightened hearing. To be honest, Caspian had never once bothered to share a transport with me. Not in all the years I had been at his side.
We had been bound together for eight years, moving through pack life shoulder to shoulder. Yet somewhere along the way, whatever warmth had existed between us had gone cold as stone. Our bond, never formally sealed with a mark, had withered into something hollow. It felt less like a mating and more like a territorial arrangement. Just another transaction in the brutal game of pack politics.
The Den